Politricks

As I boarded the subway to head down to school today, my eyes happened to scan over a headline in one of the newspaper boxes:

"President Obama is back, safe on American soil after a surprise visit to Afghanistan..."

It almost sounded like an oxymoron. In fact, some of the people around me may have been alarmed by my sudden laughter. safe, on American soil .

For the sake of keeping things simple, I will try not to pore into the million thoughts that came rushing through my head from that one line.

It would be difficult to argue that Afghanistan is indeed a safe place, a wonderful prospect for raising your kids in: you can let 'em run free in the dozens of minefields created and equipped by Western countries and then send 'em off to school and hope that their class isn't interrupted by a US-fired missle... Clearly, that is not my intent.

The first thought that came into my head was: if Afghanistan is so "unsafe" (seeing as how it is a war zone, the site of 8 or so years of engagement with US-led forces), and this is a direct result of the American (& co.) invasion, how can Obama return to "safe", American soil while thousands of Afghani civilians have no safehaven?

You can take any other country that is a site of armed conflict and insert it in that headline and the effect is still the same. There have been and will inevitably continue to be decades of US foreign policy resulting in a global chess game of sorts. While Obama and his goons continue to invade, colonize and support REAL terrorist regimes around the world, they will always have their American safehaven to return to. They will not have to deal with the clean up job, nor will they have to witness the toxic environments they created. In the days to come, there will be many a surprise visit. And of course, there will be many a return to safe, American soil...